Trust
“You will be amazed before you are half way through.” When I read that I think about my life, that I am amazed before I am half way through each day I live sober! Take for example that my husband and I could laugh together as the water began to drip/pour through our bathroom ceiling yesterday. We were grateful that we had a ceiling and that it only leaked in one spot! If that’s not making lemonade out of lemons I don’t know what is! (We knew this bathroom ceiling had an ice dam problem when we purchased the home, but as it was already covered in snow by the time we closed escrow we were just going to have to wait until Spring to repair it.) At any rate, my dear husband was on the roof in no time yesterday and cleared the dam of ice and snow so that all of the melting snow remaining on the roof no longer drains INTO the house!
OK, here is the TRUST part. The laughter was able to flow because I just knew that my God had it covered. I TRUSTED that He would lead us to the solution. It was not just an idea or a pinch hit prayer, I just knew to my core that everything would turn out perfectly! I happily dropped everything I was doing (I thought I was painting the OTHER bathroom this particular afternoon) hopped in the car and drove the 30 miles to the “salt store” for supplies. In the past, my old behavior would have made a big deal out of the leak (drama), made a big deal out of having to give up my afternoon agenda (martyr) made a big deal out of the drive (inconvenience) and probably figured out a way to blame the one I love for the ice dam! Good grief.
Happiness for me, is born of TRUST. I see faith as something in my head, an idea I suppose, and TRUST is an action I take and it is an action born from my heart. Many years ago while on a quest to increase that conscious contact with my Higher Power I was given a book titled “Ruthless Trust” . The first five pages of the book knocked my sox off! Today I know that there will always be “……an endless supply of pancakes.” I know that “The most urgent need in my life is to trust what I have received” . And that it is not clarity that I need, in fact in the words of Mother Teresa; “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When I was reading that quote in the book, a light went on for me.
I had been looking for clarity all my life. Clarity in the bottle, and then clarity in sobriety. What I realized was that I don’t need to understand why I am living in a house with a leaking roof, I just need to TRUST that my Higher Power will lead me to the solution and that while leading me, He will put enough pancakes on my table.
So there you have my day in a nutshell. It has taken me 20 years of not drinking to get here! I would not change any of it. Nope, because again, that is the stuff that weaves the tapestry of who I am today. If I were to pull one thread from the past and discard it, the rest of me may completely unravel! I TRUST that all of it has happened for a reason and I no longer need to understand why. There is so much freedom in TRUST for me. Thank you for being a part of my sobriety!